That Broken Heart She Wore
by reminiscent-afterthought
Summary: [pre-season] When Ruki got a shirt with a heart, she took a marker and drew a jagged line right through. It disgusted her, and now that it was maimed it disgusted her mother too.
1. always

**A/N:** Written for the 100 100 Drabbles with Prompts at the DFC. Prompts are done in order, so ch1's title is prompt 1, etc.

* * *

**That Broken Heart She Wore  
1: always**

When her mother brought her a T-shirt with a heart print, Ruki took a permanent marker and drew a jagged line right through. It lacked finesse: the sort of thing Rumiko expected an undisciplined boy to do, and she had raised her daughter to have more finesse than that.

Ruki didn't care of finesse. The heart disgusted her, and now that it was maimed it disgusted her mother too. She didn't wear it either, just tolerated it as a scrunched up ball until her mother threw it out.

When she got the broken heart, she was running out of shirts.


	2. around

**That Broken Heart She Wore  
2: around**

Family days were common, but a bore. There were only the three of them: three women, three generations with the eldest the most pliable of them ll.

Ruki didn't see the point of family days. It was impossible to get time _alone_ with her mother's nagging and her grandmother's hovering, yet they insisted a quiet walk together was more important. Ruki didn't see how; they didn't accomplish anything that couldn't have been done inside. Any fresh air she did take in could be doubled or tripled if she was on her own.

She could have skipped out, but she didn't.


	3. because

**That Broken Heart She Wore  
3: because**

Ruki didn't grow up like a typical girl. Maybe it was because she was daddy's little girl at heart, and her mother couldn't change that. Her father couldn't change that either, even if he'd left her, left them, for whatever new life he lived now.

But her father had decided she wasn't the poster girl her mother wanted, and she lived like that. It was part anger and hurt. Why hadn't his father stayed? Why hadn't he taken her with him? Part of it was just the rebellion of growing up.

The rest of her knew she wasn't like that.


	4. hoping

**That Broken Heart She Wore  
4: hoping**

Little love hearts next to names at the train station didn't always irk her, but now it did. Maybe because she's one of those people who've had to learn the hard way that romance isn't that sappy junk in romance flicks. It's not eternal, and anyone who draws a little love heart next to their name and someone else's is just kidding themselves.

And it's just easier to do that: start with the broken heart so it can't break again, so you don't have to break when your love life falls apart because it was non-existent in the first place.


	5. include

**That Broken Heart She Wore  
5: include**

Ruki's dream picture of a happy family doesn't include little siblings that would monopolise her parents or herself, and that's the only thing that's gone right with her family. Her mother can't have any more kids.

But Ruki's happy family picture doesn't involve a father who walks out on them and doesn't call until it's too late to forgive him. It doesn't include a mother so different to herself. It doesn't involve a grandmother who acts more like a mother than the mother does. It doesn't involve constant soft music and pretty things she can break by yelling too loud.


	6. assist

**That Broken Heart She Wore  
6: assist**

She hates it, but sometimes she goes along with her mum's fashion ideas. Because her mum is her mum after all, and Ruki can only pretend to hate her for so long.

But she doesn't have to pretend to hate the frilly clothes, or the photo shoots. Maybe she takes from her father. Maybe that's why Rumiko so stubbornly continues, no matter the obstacle in her path.

But she seems genuinely happy, and despite Ruki having not found something similar for herself, she can't begrudge her mother. She has to be proud, because the only thing she lacks is love.


	7. laugh

**That Broken Heart She Wore  
7: laugh**

Ruki didn't often laugh. The broken heart on her t-shirt made her feel a little more macabre, and there isn't much worth laughing over anyway. Comedy was a senseless bore. Misfortune was a cruelty she stayed away from…and whatever she thought about such things, she kept to herself. Rarely was she called out on it.

Cold was a mask and cloak that shielded her and concealed her. No one could look at her with pity, or tease her. It made her untouchable – like the heart over her chest, already broken so it can't be hurt anymore.

And it's not black.


	8. before

**That Broken Heart She Wore  
8: before**

It's not that her mother doesn't love her, or didn't before. Neither of them can help Ruki inheriting next to no similarities from her. They were all from her father: the hair, the eyes, distaste for the spotlighted world…and sometimes it looked like Rumiko was a stranger instead.

But looks don't replace blood, and Rumiko is Ruki's mother, despite everything. She can't help looking, hoping, that they'll develop some common similarity, that she'll develop a taste for her daughter's fashion or Ruki will tire of her jeans and fall in love with dresses instead, or they'll find a compromise somewhere.


End file.
